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Saturday, October 10, 2009

Peace: War Films

I think it was about the time when Clint Eastwood made Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima that it finally clicked. I saw war film differently. I realized that almost all war films are anti-war films.

I remember this being discussed with Eastwood on multiple occasions when these two films were released.

How can some of Hollywood's most violent films (no doubt, Letters from Iwo Jima along with many of the films below are quite violent) be the one's that are against violence the most?

Yet, these films seem to present perspectives that show war is unnecessary pain, where people often sacrifice so much for so little, or that in the midst of war lose essential perspective to live like humans. No quite patriotism in the normal perspective.

In a way, anti-war is about peace because it's fighting against what takes away peace. But for a world that still can remember a cold war, or sees the challenge of nuclear weapons on the global stage, no war is not peace enough.

3 comments:

I just recently saw "Born on the Fourth of July" and it is a very powerful film. Cruise is unbelievably good in the film and the message is what makes it so strong. I don't mind admitting that I more than teared up when Ron came home from Vietnam in his wheelchair. War movies can be devastatingly powerful when they are done the right way -- The Deer Hunter is another one of my favorites.

From my own experience I can conclude that you usually don't like war movies after your country has gone through a real war and after you've felt it on your own skin. After that most movies appear to you as they really are: extremely biased, trying to throw all the blame on just one side, everything just black or white. Rare are the movies which portray the real absurdity of wars, the absence of personal choice once you get in the middle of the outer conflict ....

One of the movies which dealt with this topic, and was done in a really profound and enlightening way was last year's READER. One of the few films which showed the real truth: in any kind of war, people are just toys, victims of political propaganda, parts of collateral damage ....

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